New Vegas, originally known as Las Vegas[1] in the Wasteland before Robert House revived its reconstruction, is a city upon the remains of Las Vegas, located in southern Nevada.

Unlike the other major cities of the United States, Vegas emerged from the atomic fire of the Great War relatively unscathed, with most of the major damage caused by the downfall of society. Limited exposure to radioactive fallout has made New Vegas and the surrounding Mojave a very hospitable place, but the lack of any real authority besides Mr. House who only really exerts authority and protection on the Strip which means crime is rampant in most parts and communities must fend for themselves. The NCR authorities uphold the law around Vegas is also spotty at best if NCR citizens are involved, and non-existent if otherwise.

Vegas' survival is owed to the actions of Robert House. In 2065, House predicted that a nuclear exchange between the USA and China would take place within the next 15 years, and decided to put all of his resources into protecting his home city of Las Vegas.[2] He used his considerable intelligence and vast wealth to ensure that when war finally came, he would be prepared. He created an army of Securitrons, some to police the Strip, but the bulk of them hidden beneath Fortification Hill for activation at a later date. He also had his own hotel, the Lucky 38 Casino, fitted with radar-jamming systems, missile arrays, a laser defense network, and life-support systems.[2]

House calculated that his defenses would see off the majority of missiles bound for Vegas, but at least some damage to outer Vegas and the surrounding towns was unavoidable, and that more was to be done. To this end, he had engineers in Sunnyvale develop The Platinum Chip, a data storage device that would upgrade his defense systems and Securitrons to the Mark II OS, ensuring that Vegas and the surrounding area would be safe.[3]

The platinum chip was due for delivery by courier on October 23, 2077, the day of the Great War. The attack, however, came 20 hours earlier than House had predicted, and before the platinum chip could leave Sunnyvale, the city was reduced to rubble, the chip buried beneath it.[2] House was forced to make do with his relatively primitive stasis systems and although most of Vegas was saved, he suffered numerous system crashes and was eventually forced into a coma. While many citizens were spared and even began celebrating, fallout from the warheads that did hit blew into the city, killing all of them.[4] Little is known of what happened in this period of Vegas' history, although evidence of riots scar the city even today, and at least one overweight gangster similar to Don Gizmo was known to have made his mark.[1] In 2138, House awoke from his coma, but bided his time, watching the city be settled by tribals and raiders.

In 2274, New California Republic (NCR) scouts arrived at Hoover Dam, piquing House's interest. These were no tribals, these were civilized people - somewhere, out in the wastes, a new society had begun. A society that would no doubt see Las Vegas and its power source, the Dam, as theirs for the taking. House's Securitrons finally emerged from the Lucky 38. At first, he established contact with the raider tribes in the area and recruited volunteers for building a wall around the inner city limits to better protect it, under the watch of his Securitrons and with his stockpiles of pre-war building materials. As House considered the security of the Strip to be his highest priority, he also ordered an inner wall built to separate it from the area around the old Fremont Street, which soon became known as Freeside. With the walls completed, House offered an ultimatum to the tribes settled on the Strip: join House and be part of his New Vegas, leave the Strip, or die. Three tribes, the Boot Riders, the Slither Kin, and the Mojave's cannibals, accepted his offer, and became respectively the Chairmen, the Omertas and the White Glove Society, collectively known as The Three Families.[5] Only the Kings refused and were pushed back to Freeside. The Three Families, as well as the Securitrons, would be enough to protect the Strip for now, but if the NCR tried to take it by force they would not be able to resist in any meaningful way.[6][7]

Instead, House had members of the three families, as well as a couple of his Securitrons occupy the dam. When the main NCR forces arrived to assume control of the dam, House sent a Securitron forward to call for a parley between the NCR's leaders and himself. Eventually, they reached an agreement in the form of the Treaty of New Vegas whereby the NCR would get 95% of the Dam's power output, McCarran International Airport as a base of operation, and the permission to establish an embassy on the Strip, while the Strip gets the remaining 5% power output - much more than required to run the place - and immunity from annexation. The treaty also disallowed the NCR from denying their citizens and soldiers to visit the Strip, leading to a boom in New Vegas' economy, as tourists from all corners of the NCR, as well as stationed troopers on leave, would flock to the Strip and spend their hard earned salaries on gambling, alcohol, and prostitutes.[6][8]

Around the same time, on the other side of the Colorado River, Caesar sat his eyes on New Vegas. Feeling that the empire he was building lacked a true capital, a place he would be proud to call his Rome, he mobilized Caesar's Legion in the hopes of forcing the NCR out of the Mojave Wasteland and taking the city for himself. In 2277 this culminated in First Battle of Hoover Dam, which the Legion lost. Caesar, however, has not given up his plans of taking control of Vegas, and has waited patiently in his headquarters on Fortification Hill ever since his first defeat for an opportunity to strike again.

The continuous presence of the Legion has created a delicate power balance in the region. The NCR would have taken the Strip long ago, but the presence of the Legion means that if they attacked the Strip, they would be vulnerable to an attack from them at Hoover Dam.

House has grand plans for Vegas - he calculates that on the back of tourism from the NCR, Vegas' economy will be strong enough to restart the development of new technology within 20 years, put people in orbit within 50 years, and within 100 years, have a colony ready to leave Earth behind and settle a new planet, untouched by war. And that is why he cannot let either side win. House spent over 812,545 caps hiring salvage teams to recover the platinum chip from Sunnyvale in just one year,[9] with countless more spent during other years. Having finally recovered it, House arranged for it to be transported back to him. Fearing, however, that the leader of the Chairmen, Benny, was conspiring against him and would try to steal the chip upon its arrival in the Mojave Wasteland, he had his trusted Securitron, Victor, contact the Mojave Express in Primm, to hire six couriers. Five of the couriers were going to carry various novelty items, acting as decoys for the sixth courier, who was given the chip, effectively placing the future of New Vegas in that person's hands.[10]

New Vegas is situated within a basin on the floor of the Mojave Desert, surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides, creating its arid, inhospitable climate. Settled only in the 19th century and blossoming in the 20th, the post-nuclear Vegas is a miniature of the wasteland, from the affluent New Vegas Strip, through the impoverished Freeside and North Vegas square, the vast fields of the NCR sharecropper farms, and the resourceful Westside, to the derelict South Vegas ruins, the Vegas metropolitan area spans all the misery, accomplishment, and hope the wastelands bring.

A vast network of sewers, some of which are inhabited by humans (and other creatures) run underneath the city.

References

↑ 1.01.1Tycho: "{102}{}{Another new face. Travelers here are a dime a dozen. But you have the look of someone different. Care to join me for a drink?}"The Vault Dweller: "{104}{}{Sure.}"Tycho: "{106}{}{Delightful. I hope you don't mind your drink well-watered - they treat beer here like it's a potted plant.}"The Vault Dweller: "{107}{}{So, what's your story?}"Tycho: "{109}{}{I could ask the same of you. In the interest of amity, I suppose I'll tell first. I'm called Tycho. Came from out east, what used to be called Nevada.}"The Vault Dweller: "{110}{}{That's a pretty long trip.}"Tycho: "{112}{}{Yeah, it was. Decided to take it easy for a while. This place shows some promise, just as soon as someone cleans up some of the scum.}"The Vault Dweller: "{113}{}{Why don't you?}"Tycho: "{118}{}{Not my place. I'd rather not cross Killian, after all. He'll clean up this town when he gets around to it. A good man, mark my words. But watch out for that fellow Gizmo. Reminds me of another fat freak my father told me about back in Las Vegas.}"(TYCHO.MSG)

↑ 2.02.12.2The Courier: "You say that you saved Las Vegas. How?"Robert House: "By 2065 I deemed it a mathematical certainty that an atomic war would devastate the Earth within 15 years. Every projection I ran confirmed it. I knew I couldn't "save the world," nor did I care to. But I could save Vegas, and in the process, perhaps, save mankind. I set to work immediately. I thought I had plenty of time to prepare. As it turned out, I was 20 hours short."The Courier: "What preparations did you make to save Las Vegas?"Robert House: "On the day of the Great War, 77 atomic warheads targeted Las Vegas and its surrounding areas. My networked mainframes were able to predict and force-transmit disarm code subsets to 59 warheads, neutralizing them before impact. Laser cannons mounted on the roof of the Lucky 38 destroyed another 9 warheads. The rest got through, though none hit the city itself. A sub-optimal performance, admittedly. If only the Platinum Chip had arrived a day sooner..."(Robert House's dialogue)

↑The Courier: "Why didn't the Platinum Chip arrive on time?"Robert House: "The Platinum Chip was printed in Sunnyvale, California on October 22nd, 2077 - the day before the Great War. It was to have been delivered by courier the following afternoon... but by then, the world had ended. The Chip contained vital software upgrades, but not just for my Securitrons. Every aspect of the missile defense grid would have been upgraded, too. Given that I had to make do with buggy software, the outcome could have been worse. I nearly died as it was."(Robert House's dialogue)

↑Fallout: New Vegas Official Game Guide Game of the Year Edition p.462-463: "House ArrestWhen blaring civil defense sirens heralded mankind's doom on October 23rd, 2077, the citizens of Las Vegas bore witness to an astonishing spectacle. Huge laser cannons unfurled from secret housings in the roof of the Lucky 38 casino and Hoover Dam's intake towers and began spitting blasts of green fire into the sky, destroying warhead after warhead and sparing Las Vegas's urban center and the dam from direct hits. Citizens filled the streets and cheered. And then they died horribly from the lethal fallout that blew in from the dozens of warheads that detonated around Las Vegas.Though Mr. House's missile defense grid performed admirably, the Great War was in actuality the day of his greatest setback. Having spent decades preparing for the statistical inevitability of atomic war, house found himself forced to protect Las Vegas with buggy software. Had the Great War occurred even 24 hours later, House would have received and installed Mark II of his defensive systems' operating software. Instead, the disc containing the upgrade-which had just passed quality assurance-was buried in the irradiated ruins of the Sunnyvale, California lab where it was developed.Defending Las Vegas from atomic destruction set off a cascade of system crashes that plunged the Lucky 38 into darkness and nearly killed Mr. House. Running on a trickle of emergency power, the electrode-studded command helmet by which he controlled the Lucky 38 shorting out with maddening frequency, the replenishing salve bath and pharmaceuticals he'd spent billions to develop going rancid, his ensconced body aging, House battled to reboot his data core with an older version of the operating system. It was a daily struggle that would grind on for nearly five years, inflicting a physical and mental strain so severe that House lapsed into a coma when the reboot was finally achieved.When House finally came to, decades had passed. Immediately he began using his Securitron robots to search out human settlements, and eventually he was able to hire salvage teams in the distant west to search for the priceless upgrade disc in the ruins of the Sunnyvale. The disc was not to be found for many years, during which time House was forced to improvise an ad hoc defense of the Vegas region against the encroachment of NCR forces, namely the recruitment and employment of the Three Families to augment his downgraded Mark I Securitron robot defenses."

↑The Courier: "You recruited the Omertas as one of the Three Families?"Robert House: "Yes, though at the time they called themselves the "Slither Kin." A vicious clan, not that that's changed, exactly. They were nomads, capable fighters, but their specialty was betrayal. They'd invite travelers into their yurts, drug them, murder or enslave them. They took pride in their craft. I don't think Omertas saw other people as people at all. Everyone else was just... prey. They reminded me of a certain criminal element Vegas used to attract. I told them some stories, gave them some clothes - and they ran with it."The Courier: "What were the original names of the other tribes?"Robert House: "The Chairmen, as we know them now, went by the unfortunate appellation of the "Mojave Boot-Riders." They were nomads, too. As for the White Glove Society, I afraid I'm contractually obligated not to reveal their original name."(Robert House's dialogue)

↑ 6.06.1The Courier: "How did you establish New Vegas?"Robert House: "We can discuss this in greater detail at another time. Suffice it to say that when my Securitrons detected NCR scouts at Hoover Dam, I took action. I recruited a tribal force to supplement my Securitrons and renovated the Strip just in time to welcome the NCR as it marched into the region. Instead of war, a treaty was negotiated. And the money started to pour in."(Robert House's dialogue)

↑The Courier: "What can you tell me about Freeside?"The King: "To understand Freeside, you have to look back a few years. Originally, we were all just tribes making a living in this area. That all changed when Mr. House came around. He made an offer to the three biggest tribes that were willing to listen to him. Today, everyone calls those tribes the Three Families, and they live in luxury and run their own casinos in the Strip. The rest of us were left to fight over the crumbs, living in the shadow of those more fortunate. Things got pretty nasty for a while. But we wanted more. A place of our own. A place where no one could tell us what to do. And we didn't want to go elsewhere to find it. So we took control of this place, and made it our own. And that's really all Freeside is, the best of a bad situation."(The King's dialogue)

↑The Courier: "I'd like to know more about the NCR."Dennis Crocker: "I can provide a quick history lesson, if that's what you're looking for. In 2274, President Kimball sent the NCR army into the Mojave in force, with the objective of occupying and repairing Hoover Dam. Rangers and army scouts had confirmed that the dam was basically unoccupied and could be restored to an operable condition. Upon arriving at the dam, however, they discovered that a large force of tribals and robots had occupied it. This was our introduction to the Three Families, the Securitrons, and, of course, Mr. House. Using his Securitrons as intermediaries, Mr. House called for parlay. He claimed his forces had occupied Hoover Dam in order to safeguard it for our arrival. And that he was ready to turn it over to us, so long as we could agree to terms. Those terms became the Treaty of New Vegas. The Treaty recognized Mr. House's sovereignty over the Strip and granted us rights to establish military bases at the Dam and McCarran Airport. The NCR is legally permitted to send 95% of the electricity produced by the dam to our home states. The remaining 5% goes to the Strip. The treaty actually makes it illegal for the NCR to prevent its citizens, or troops on furlough, from visiting the Strip. Once on the Strip, our citizens are subject to arrest - or punishment - by House's Securitrons, though that's a rare occurrence. Our troops enjoy a different status. It's illegal for the Securitrons to take action against them. Of course, it's also illegal for our troops to carry firearms on the Strip, so there isn't much trouble they can get into. Our military police does an adequate job of keeping the troops on furlough in line. I don't envy them that task. The embassy was established a few weeks after the Treaty was signed. Basically Mr. House handed us a dumpy little building he had no interest in renovating. I'm the third ambassador to hold this post. And the first, I think, to accept its limitations. My predecessors had ambitions of engineering the annexation of the Mojave. They thought they'd convince Mr. House to join up. I've never even spoken to the man - or whatever he is. Maybe the situation will change once we've beaten the Legion once and for all."(Dennis Crocker's dialogue)

↑The Courier: "What do you know about the courier Benny shot?"Yes Man: "I knew he/she was carrying the Platinum Chip! And I knew right where Benny should wait for him/her! That's why Benny put me here! To monitor Mr. House's data transmissions. They're all encrypted, of course - but I'm quite a decrypter! Did you know that Mr. House spent 812,545 caps hiring salvage teams to find the Platinum Chip- just in the last year alone? Of course you didn't! Or that there were seven couriers, but six of them were carrying junk? How about their exact routes, and the mercenary teams that screened them? I knew all that. Pretty smart, huh?"(Yes Man's dialogue)

↑The Courier: "Isn't that overstating things a bit?"Robert House: "To your untrained eyes, it may look as though mankind is making a comeback. In the NCR, you have something that remsembles a nation state. Savage as it is, in Caesar's Legion, you have an organized society. But neither of these offer a future. They're regurgitations of the past. Bring me the Platinum Chip, and in ten years you'll hardly recognize this city."(Robert House's dialogue)

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